Blood And Bullets
by AsheRhyder
Summary: Mysterious things happen in the city of St. Jude. Murders and ghosts lead Lina and the rest of the Special Task Forces on a hunt through the clouded past for a seriel killer! AU warning.


Blood and Bullets

When Lina was five, she lived in a dilapidated house on Fifth Street and wanted to be a princess when she grew up. She played in the hills between the city limits and the slums and didn't always listen when her mother screamed for her to come inside. She knew that her father drank too much and that her mother worked too hard. She believed in faeries because she met one out on First Street, where the people didn't go and the houses were falling down. 

The faerie was on the top floor of the third house on the street, a black, burnt out building that used to be a Victorian beauty. Lina found him on a Friday evening in mid-July, playing with some kind of invisible toys. He was beautiful, with breathtaking silver-blue skin and crystal-blue hair. 

"What are you doing?" She asked him almost immediately. He turned around and stared at her for a moment before answering. 

"I'm making a ring." He replied as he turned back to his work.

"With what?" She inquired further as only a child could.

"The light of the sun is my flame." He said, and she saw a forge filled with the fire of the setting sun.  

"Wow, how did you do that?" 

"The east wind fans the fire." He said next, and she saw large bellows next to the forge. 

"Hey, mister, that's a neat trick." 

"The mountains are my steel; my hammer is the flower with blood-red petals. The morning dew is my water." As he spoke, each tool appeared. The ring that appeared in his hand was as bright as the morning star. Lina marveled at the magic before her. 

"Why are you making a ring, mister?" She walked closer to him timidly. His eyes met hers, and for a moment all was silent. "Are you magic?" The little redheaded girl leaned in towards him as she whispered her question. He smiled sadly and vanished with the last rays of sunlight. 

When Lina was ten, she lived in a middle-sized house on Forty-Second Street and wanted to be an actress when she grew up. She played in the streets and sometimes the hills, and she never listened when her mother screamed for her to come inside. She knew that her father did dirty work for bad people and that her mother drank too much. She believed in ghosts because she met one out on First Street, where the people didn't go and the houses were falling down. 

The ghost was on the top floor of the third house on the street, a black, burnt out building that used to be a Victorian beauty. Lina found him on a Friday evening in early October, working with some kind of invisible tools. He was horrible, with translucent silver-blue skin and metallic blue hair. 

"What are you?" She asked him almost immediately. He turned and stared at her for a moment, but went back to working. 

"I'm making a sword." He said simply. 

"With what? There's nothing there." She stated firmly.

"The souls of the forgotten are my flame." He said, and she saw a forge filled with a terrible blue fire.

"Oh my God, how did you do that? Never mind, I don't want to know…"

"Their screams are my bellows. Their bones are my steel. The weight of time is my hammer. I have no water… except your tears…"

"No thanks, that's okay. I'll just go now." She tried to back up, but the ghost appeared behind her and caught her in his spectral embrace. 

"Do you hear it?" He whispered in her ear. "Can you feel our agony? We have waited for so long. Will you help us?" She jerked away from his icy touch and spun around to meet his gaze. For a moment she stood as if hypnotized by his sad blue eyes. Though the cries of a thousand lost souls assaulted her ears, she heard only his voice asking her help.

"Why me?" She asked even as her eyes began to water. 

"Because you believed." His smile was slight as the tears fell, and he plunged the ghostly blade into the bucket that appeared in front of him. Recognition assailed her senses, even as the phantom steam rose to obscure her vision. 

"Aren't you—?"

He was gone. 

When Lina was fifteen, she lived in a foster home on Main Street and wanted to be a cop when she grew up. She didn't play anymore, and her mother never screamed for her to come inside anymore. She knew that her father was in prison and that her mother would be dead of alcohol poisoning before she graduated. She didn't believe in faeries or ghosts because she didn't see them. That didn't stop one of _them_ from seeing _her_.

One cold December night, he appeared by her bedside. He glowed softly with moonlight and stardust. The shadows fell over his face like a veil of mysteries and wrapped around him like a mantle of darkness. 

"The time of vengeance will soon come." He whispered, gently tucking her covers up around her. "Those who were wronged will be avenged. Our common betrayer will be brought to face his sins. Thank you for believing." He softly pressed a kiss to her forehead and slipped a ghostly ring onto her finger before fading back into the night that spawned him. 

~St. Jude City Police Department

  Briefing Room 3A

  Six Years Later…~

"All right, children, settle down." Special Task Force Director Xellos Metallium strolled into the room wearing his usual cheery smile. The half-dozen sleepy officers who glared back at him were not impressed with the morning person's sunny demeanor. Ballistics and Combat Expert Gourry Gabriev was already asleep again and drooling on the table between the two new transfers, a young data processor named Sylphiel Nels-Rada and a justice-blinded rookie named Amelia Seyroon, who also happened to be the daughter of the county commissioner.

Xellos saw the unresponsive reaction of his assembled elite and sighed. It looked like he was going to have to put caffeine coffee back in the pot after all. At least he got to see his team in withdrawal for the last week or three. 

"Let's get down to business, shall we?" He smiled again. "After all, it's a dirty city out there, and its not getting any cleaner." 

"Since when have you ever cared about this city getting cleaned up?" Haughty crime lab officer Filia Ulcoupt narrowed her eyes. The violet-haired director mimicked her briefly with a sneer, then reached over and turned out the lights. Either Amelia or Sylphiel screamed, and there was a commotion as people scrambled. 

A video projector turned on, illuminating the mess of tangled limbs with soft ambient light. 

"My, my." Xellos sighed again. "I do wish you would tell me ahead of time when you're planning to hold an orgy. I do so hate missing out on these." Specialist Agent Lina Inverse glared at him with enough venom to wilt the potted plant outside the door. 

"Oh dear." Sylphiel blanched as she looked up at the image on the synthetic white screen. 

"What the hell is that?" Profiler Valgaav Tierra stood up abruptly, sending Gourry, Filia and Amelia tumbling back to the floor.  

"That was Agent Vrummagen, from the D.E.A." Xellos said grimly, opening his violet eyes. "He was found four days ago, but the coroner says it looks like he's been dead longer than that." 

"How can they tell?" Gourry looked slightly ill at the mess in the picture. 

"Cause of death is listed as hypothermia and blood loss." Xellos clicked the remote and switched the camera angle. 

"I understand the blood loss, but hypothermia?" Valgaav looked confused. "It's been really warm this September."

"October, Val. Catch up with the rest of us." Filia corrected him. "September ended last week." The teal haired man rolled his eyes in the safety of the dim light. 

"It would be September to Agent Vrummagen." He retorted. 

"Subject showed signs of frost crystallization in the blood closest to the edges of the wounds, but not in blood already spilled or still inside the body." Xellos flipped through a stack of papers on his clipboard. "Whatever weapon was used against him was most likely the cause of that." 

"So we must bring Agent Vrummagen's murderer to justice!" Amelia determined. 

"No." The director shook his head, causing more confusion for his crack team. 

"No?" The rookie blinked. "But I thought—"

The violet haired executive tapped the remote and switched to a picture of another bloody mess. She recoiled and silenced simultaneously. 

"Operative Eris Strife, D.M.V. was found a day later." He continued. "Coroner report is the same: blood loss and hypothermia."

"And there aren't any signs of sexual abuse or trauma? Any other wounds except the cuts?" Valgaav studied the picture curiously.

"The killer seems to take particular aggression to the knees, but that's it." Xellos answered and changed the picture to another gore filled image. "Agent Zangulas and his wife Martina, F.B.I., were found day before yesterday. It appears that 'he' killed two birds with one stone, so to speak. Their wounds mirror each other's perfectly. As above, coroner lists cause of death as blood loss and hypothermia."

"How the hell is this killer inflicting them with hypothermia?" The profiler demanded. "Where have these people been found?" 

"On the top floors of buildings on First Street, in the Lower District." 

"On the roofs?" 

"No, still inside. Just on the top floor." 

"This is so confusing." Gourry sighed. 

"It gets better." Xellos said. "Or worse, depending on how you look at it." 

"Oh God." Lina moaned. The image changed to a man with his limbs chopped off and diced. 

"This was Agent Seigrim, from the Department of Justice, found yesterday." Xellos answered the unvoiced questions. The next picture was of a man pinned to a chain link fence with shards of wood. "Agent Gaav was actually found still alive by the only witness we have, but he died of exposure and hypothermia shortly thereafter." 

"Aren't they the same thing?" Amelia asked. 

"Bravo, Ms. Seyroon." He applauded dryly, and her face flushed. "Once more, I stress the fact that this is what forensics sent me." He glared briefly at Filia before turning on the lights. Several curses followed as the officers eyes adjusted suddenly. 

"Damn it, Metallium…" Lina growled. 

"Now, Ladies and Gentlemen, your mission, whether or not you choose to accept it, is to find the connection between these murders, identify the killer, and bring him or her in, dead or alive." The violet eyes closed as he smiled and began to pass out papers. "Amelia, Filia, and Val, check the crime scenes for further evidence or any other clues. Lina, you question the witness. Gourry and Sylphiel will go with you to make sure you don't choke an answer out of him." 

"What exactly are you implying?" The redhead shot him a withering glare. 

"And what will you be doing while we're all out running ourselves ragged?" Filia asked sharply.

"I will be staring at the computer screen in an attempt to cross-reference the victims." He answered snidely. "Unless of course, _dear Filia_, you want to be the one to sit in front of the millions of glowing red, green, and blue pixels, shifting uncomfortably as the harsh glare burns out the rods and cones in the back of your eyes, wishing to God that you could turn away or remember to blink, anything so that the damn burning would stop… would you, Filia _dearest_?" Xellos slowly leaned in towards the blonde woman as he spoke, his rich tenor voice seductively and hypnotically seeping past her defenses. By the time he finished speaking, their faces were only a few inches apart, and he had her clear blue eyes pinned by his own amethyst gaze. Their lips were so close that she could almost taste him. 

"No," she whispered, shivering as her mouth came within a hair's breadth of his. 

"Good then." He quickly pulled back and smiled to the rest of his team, who sat in varying degrees of confusion and frustration. Filia nearly fell off her chair when it hit her a second later that she almost kissed the team director. 

"I swear, if she doesn't have a heart attack from being so high strung, Filia's going to die from UST." Lina grumbled as she rolled her eyes and exited the briefing room. 

"UST?" Amelia looked clueless, and Valgaav took pity on her. Placing his hand on her back, he gently steered her off to a corner to explain the Wonderful World of Unrelieved Sexual Tension. 

Five minutes later, the rest of the police in the station that day witnessed the first shortage on tissues since Lina's 'introduction'. 

Xellos sighed and put his feet on his desk. What a lucky man he was, to have friends who eliminated the need of enemies… 

~St. Jude Apartment Complex #4: Dagon Peak

17th Floor, West Sector, C Block: 

Milgazia Ryuu~

Lina looked briefly between the serious, golden-haired, amber-eyed man on the witness data page and the pale, disheveled man in front of her. The man wearing a terrycloth bathrobe and standing just inside the doorway looked like he had seen a ghost, but with that murder scene, she wasn't surprised. 

"Milgazia Ryuu?" She hazarded a guess, and the man nodded wearily. "I'm sorry to bother you. My name is Lina Inverse, and I'm with the St. Jude City Police Special Task Force." She showed her badge to him and silently thanked any and all gods, spirits, and ancestral benefactors for a change of heart on Xellos' part. The director's decision to pull Sylphiel for cross-referencing and Gourry for some other manpower was a blessing. The forgetful blond man and soft-spoken young woman surely would have made the witness feel more uncomfortable than he already did, if at all possible. 

"You're here about the murder." He glanced over her quickly, and then opened the door wide enough for her to slip through. "Come inside. This should not be casually discussed in the hallway." 

The C Block model was a one-person sized living quarter, cozy but not cramped, with a small veranda. Lina lived in a C Block model herself, so she wasn't surprised with the layout of the apartment. Mr. Ryuu's home was decorated tastefully with solid black or white leather or wooden furniture, clean and dustless and very much unlike the traditional bachelor's pad. 

"Have a seat wherever you like." The blond man gestured towards the sitting area as he moved toward the kitchenette. "Would you care for some tea? I think I'm going to need a few cups to get through this ordeal." 

"No thanks." Lina declined his offer as she sat in a white wooden chair. "Mr. Ryuu, where were you on –"

"You want to know if I saw the murderer on the night that Mr. Gaav died." Milgazia put two teacups on the tray anyway. "You want to know about Zelgadis."

"Zelgadis?" She pulled out her tape recorder. "Do you mind?" 

"Not at all." He placed a small sugar pot on the tray next to a tiny pitcher of cream. "If it will help your case, of course. I have a feeling you may need to listen to it again after I talk."

She checked the tape and pressed the 'record' button.

"So who is this Zelgadis, and what is his connection to the murder?" She asked. 

"Not 'is', 'was'." The blond man entered with the tray and set it on the table in the middle of the room. 

"'Was'?" Lina blinked. 

"Zelgadis has been dead for almost twenty years." Milgazia nodded as he poured tea.

"Twenty years?" The redhead looked even more confused. 

"It started a long time ago." He handed her a teacup, which she took distractedly. "Zelgadis Greywers was a good friend of mine. We grew up together in this very building. This is his tea set we're using, by the way. His grandfather was going to throw everything out after Zelgadis died, but I managed to save this set. It was his mother's."

Lina stared at the cup's simple ceramic design. 

"Zelgadis would have been upset if he knew his grandfather destroyed this tea set." Milgazia took a drink from the azure-tinted cup, carefully avoiding the mountainous landscape painted on the delicate china. "His mother used to make us sit for afternoon tea every day, right up until the day she died." 

"Mr. Ryuu, I don't see what this has to do with the case—" Lina began, but his sharp amber eyes darted up and locked with hers. 

"Hear me out, Miss Inverse." He said softly. "It's important that you understand about Zelgadis." 

"…If you say so." She relented. 

"Zelgadis was a quiet fellow." The elder man's gaze turned to the window, and the redhead let out a sigh of relieve she hadn't realized she was holding. "He was the kind that let their work speak for themselves. He made all sorts of things, at least, until his parents died. The papers all said it was a botched mugging, but Zelgadis was suspicious. His father was a cop; he was positive that someone didn't like the case that Mr. Greywers was solving. Zelgadis started training and studying at every chance he got after that, wanting to be a police officer to find out what really happened to his parents. It consumed him."

"Mr. Ryuu—"

"Zelgadis told me once, before he disappeared, that he was close to finding the cause." The blond man's hands shook as he set his cup down. "He said that he knew why his parents died, but not who was behind it all. The day after, he went out on patrol and never came back. After seven years, he was listed as legally dead, but that night…" 

"Mr. Ryuu, are you telling me that someone who's been MIA for twenty years is responsible for the murder of Agent Gaav?" Lina sat forward with a dubious _expression. "Zelgadis would have to be close to forty or fifty years old by now, and Agent Gaav was well trained in combat—"

"What I saw that night was no man of flesh and blood, but a man of vengeance and death." Milgazia said without blinking. "Zelgadis died twenty years ago, I'm not fool enough to believe that whoever killed his parents would let him live once he started poking around in their business. You can check your records, and you'll see no Agent Gaav back then. Whoever he was twenty years ago, he had some part in Zelgadis' disappearance. Zelgadis came back to get his revenge, I'm sure of it." 

"**Mr. Ryuu**, do you expect me to believe a ghost committed six murders?" She stood up. "There is no evidence of the existence of… ghosts…" Her voice trailed off as a picture on the wall caught her eye. Milgazia turned to see what struck her attention and nearly laughed. 

The picture was of a young man in a freshly ironed police uniform, head turned towards the camera and body angled slightly to the left. His soft lavender hair covered the right side of his face, a style Lina was nearly sure was against regulations, but it was his eyes, what was visible of them, which really got her focus. Crystal-clear, vibrant blue, and sharp with intelligence, his eyes struck a chord of memory with her. She peered harder at the photograph, slowly crossing the room to study it closer. 

"Is that…?" Her voice was barely above a whisper as she reached the picture. 

"That's Zelgadis' picture just after he graduated the police academy." Milgazia walked up behind her. "He hated having his picture taken." 

"He looks so familiar…" She whispered. "It's almost as if I've seen him before." 

"Regardless of whether or not you believe in ghosts, Miss Inverse, Zelgadis is not at rest." He said solemnly. "Perhaps he is not yet dead, or perhaps he is deceased. I do not know, but I **do** know what I saw that night, and it **was **Zelgadis."

"Mr. Ryuu, how—"

A clock on the wall struck 3 PM, and Milgazia double-checked the time with a start. 

"Blast," he grumbled. "I'm going to be late." 

"I'm sorry to have taken up so much of your time." Lina took a first and final sip of tea before packing her tape recorder away. 

"Aurora will have my head…" He sighed. "Good luck with your ghost hunt, Miss Inverse. Forgive me for rushing you out, but I'm supposed to be in a moderator training session right now. If you'll excuse me…" 

"Sure, I'll see myself out." She headed for the door. "Thank you for the tea, by the way." 

"Don't thank me, thank Zelgadis." Milgazia's voice faded as the door closed behind her. 

~St. Jude City Cemetery

Sector 13 – Public Servants

J-Plot: Killed In Action ~

Zelgadis Greywers' gravestone was located just below his parents'. Donovan and Suzume Greywers shared a large granite headstone engraved with doves and stars. Donovan's side had his badge number above the epitaph, and Suzume's side was decorated with wilted roses. Zelgadis' plot was marked only with a small slate plaque reading: 'Zelgadis Greywers', along with date of birth and death. 

Lina studied the simple tombstone and wondered if the deceased young man would have actually chosen that particular marker for himself. She sighed and put a white rose on top of the plot. 

Her pager went off, and she quickly turned to investigate. The tiny digital symbols displayed their message and disappeared at the push of a button and she exhaled slowly as she moved to leave. The team was regrouping. Xellos and Sylphiel had a few leads, and Filia was strung out because of some kind of scientific anomaly or something like that. 

A cool wind rushed up and past the redhead, causing her to shiver. She pulled her jacket closer to her neck and glanced around before mentally chiding herself. 

"Honestly, Lina, getting all worked up over ghosts and spooks. Mr. Ryuu is probably mentally unbalanced. He saved a tea set, for the love of God! A tea set! And that story… ghost cops, of all things. Yeah, right. As if we don't have enough to do cleaning up the messes of the living…" Some instinct told her to turn around. Lina, being a woman of instinct, kept walking. The feeling persisted until she did... and gasped. Somehow in the five minutes she had looked away the rose withered. 

~St. Jude City Police Department

Briefing Room 3A

6:00 PM ~

Xellos picked his way through the mess of discarded Chinese carryout boxes with which his elite team decided to decorate the floor. A distinctive crunch alerted him to the fate of his fortune cookie, which went missing after he fumbled the catch to Lina's throw. He sighed in lament for the lost sweet, but continued his journey to the front of the room.

"If you're all finally sated…" He spoke loudly to try and get their attention.

"Hold on, we have to read our fortunes." Lina waved him off like a fly.

"I get no respect." He sighed comically and was further ignored. 

"Mine says, 'The truth will always prevail'." Amelia squinted at the writing on the tiny slip of paper. 

"How many of these do they print?" Filia threw hers over her shoulder. "This is the fifth time I got, 'Without darkness, there is no light'. What is that supposed to mean, anyway?" 

"'When clouds cover the sky, remember that every flower needs rain to bloom." Val recited with a bored _expression. "Who comes up with this crap? Man, if I could get paid for writing this kind of shit…" 

Gourry turned to his left, reread his fortune, shrugged, and whacked the profiler upside the head. 

"Oww! What the hell was that for?" The teal-haired man yelled. 

"That's what it said!" The blond man put up his hands defensively. Val snatched the fortune from the other man's hand. 

"'Hit the loudmouth to your left'." He blanched. "What the hell…?"

"Must be karma." Sylphiel repressed her giggle, but everyone else laughed out loud. "'Patience and care will win your heart's desire'." The dark-haired girl blushed bright red. 

"What's yours say, Xellos?" Valgaav asked. 

"You dummy, why'd you even ask him?" Filia shot the profiler a Look. "You know he's just going to say—"

"That is a secret!" The violet-haired man grinned. 

"Oh yeah…" He grimaced. 

"Your turn, Lina." All eyes turned to the redhead just as she popped the unbroken cookie into her mouth. 

"Eww, Lina!" Amelia flinched as her co-worker manipulated the sweet with her tongue. A few seconds later, she pulled out the fortune and happily munched the treat. 

"Hmm? 'Killed in action October 31, First Street, minus 20 years'?" She flipped the paper over in search of more writing. "What the hell kind of fortune is this?" 

"It sounds like a clue." Xellos mused. "Though as to what, I wouldn't know." 

"I'm going to check it out." The redhead stood up. "Whatever this is about could be important. How many cookies talk about getting killed in action, after all?" 

"I'll go with you." Filia also rose, warily eying the director. 

"As interesting as this all is, may I remind you that we are gathered here to solve a murder mystery of our own?" He sighed loudly. "Be back here in ten minutes. I'd like to go to bed sometime before dawn, and we have yet to accomplish anything."

Both women nodded and departed with haste. 

~Nine and three-quarters minutes later…~

Lina grimaced as Filia leaned against the doorway, panting for breath. The information they found, while supportive of Mr. Ryuu's statement, was most likely irrelevant to their investigation.  

"You raced from the records room, didn't you?" Valgaav sighed as he watched them. 

"Promptness is one of the better qualities of a lady." The blonde answered between breaths. 

"So is a demure stride." Xellos teased. 

Filia stormed past him and returned to her chair without acknowledging his existence.

"Well then, ladies and gentlemen, now that we've finally gotten ourselves organized, let us present the facts we've found thus far." The director clapped his hands together and beamed. "Filia, dearest, if you'd like to go first?" She glowered at him as she rose to her feet. 

"Firstly, I've gone over the corpses and found no traces of tearing in the tissue around the lacerations." She stated. "This means that the weapon used to attack was extremely sharp, at least as sharp as medical scalpels. Secondly, due to the depth and angle of the incisions, we've determined that the blade was slightly curved and at least two feet long. Our perpetrator is using a weapon not easily concealed and most likely personalized, something designed for him alone. Lastly, and most curiously, despite the victims' blood loss, the major veins and arteries were all frozen." 

"Don't you keep the cadavers on ice anyway?" The profiler asked skeptically. 

"Yes, the bodies in the morgue are chilled to prevent deterioration, but these frozen areas were close to the heart, which is supposed to be one of the warmest areas, and did not thaw out when removed and relocated to room temperature."

"Couldn't they just be clots?" Lina inquired.

"There weren't any platelets present!" Filia cried in frustration. "The blood vessels were _frozen_! Crystallized with ice!"

"What happened with the witness?" The violet-eyed man turned to Lina and ignored the blonde woman's irritations. 

"I don't think we'll be able to rely too heavily on Mr. Ryuu's statement." She shook her head. "He practically swore that our suspect was the ghost of a dead officer named Zelgadis…" 

"Zelgadis?" Xellos blinked and looked thoughtful. "As in Zelgadis Greywers?" 

"That's his name!" She exclaimed. "How did you know?"

"Zelgadis was the grandson of Rezo Akahoshi, the CEO of Shabranigdo Inc." The director frowned, which worried all present; when Xellos Metallium frowned, bad things happened. "He was a cop, and a damn good one, up until his disappearance. It shook the whole community." 

"Could he be the one doing all of this?"  Amelia's eyes widened. 

"Doubtful." The redhead shook her head. "Remember my fortune? I found a paper from twenty years ago in the records room. There's an article about a dead man found on First Street on October 31. They didn't have the ID technology we do now, but my guess is that was Greywers they found. According to Mr. Ryuu, Zelgadis was looking into his parents' murder and probably pissed off the same people."

"Rezo Akahoshi…" Sylphiel flipped through her notes. "That's the name of their employer…" 

"Who's?" Lina inquired. "The Greywers'?" 

"No, no, the victims; the victims all worked at Shabranigdo Inc, about twenty years ago, specifically under Mr. Akahoshi! They were working on some secret drug project and there was a big scandal about it being leaked to the streets, but it blew over because of lack of evidence." 

"Who was the investigating officer?" A knot formed in the pit of the redhead's stomach. 

The silence was stifling as Sylphiel re-read the files. "Zelgadis Greywers. It looks like the case was dropped around the time of his disappearance."

"Do you think…? Maybe he got really mad when he couldn't push the case through, and he faked his death or went away for a while, and now he's back and getting revenge on them?" Valgaav glared at Amelia for even suggesting that kind of idea. 

"If Greywers _were_ a suspect, which I highly doubt he is, he'd be close to fifty years old by now." He lectured. "All of the murders suggest a younger man, mid-twenties at most. Most people nearing fifty wouldn't have the stamina for the repetitive slashes necessary to do the damage done on the bodies. They're not slow, deliberate cuts; they're wild and chaotic. They have a rage behind them." 

"The cuts have a rage?" Lina raised her eyebrow at his phrasing. 

"I didn't know cuts could get mad." Gourry mused. 

"At any rate, we've made progress. We've linked the murders to Zelgadis Greywers and Rezo Akahoshi. We're farther along than we were this morning." Xellos plopped into his chair. 

"Mr. Metallium?" An officer from the desk poked her head into the room. "You have a call on line three, sir."

"Who is it?" The violet-haired man looked up, exhausted. 

"A Mr. Akahoshi, sir. He says it's important." 

Eyebrows rose around the room as the director rose to his feet and dashed out the door. Five minutes later, he walked back into the room. His face was pale and his eyes were open wider than they had ever seen.

"Mr. Akahoshi has seen a ghost." He said calmly. "He claims that he has seen the ghost of his dead grandson appear and threaten to murder him. He requests that we send one of the Special Task Force officers to ensure his safety this evening." 

Silence descended once more as the coincidence of the situation sunk into their minds. 

"A ghost?" Sylphiel trembled. 

"Murder?" Gourry scowled. 

"Mr. Akahoshi?" Filia asked. 

"What a minute, he wants a bodyguard?" Valgaav shouted. 

"Mr. Akahoshi requested that one of the officers qualified to handle more delicate situations, AKA the Special Forces, be sent to the Shabranigdo Inc building to investigate the appearance of the ghost of his grandson." Xellos closed his eyes to keep his team from seeing him roll said organs. "Since Mr. Akahoshi _and_ his grandson Zelgadis are both on our suspect list, I'd suggest we jump at this opportunity. It may be that this is our only chance to stop the killer." 

"I'll go." Lina stood up with a determined look on her face. 

"Good girl." He nodded. "Take Gourry to the ammo hold and get geared up. Aim for speed. Filia, Sylphiel, and Val, stay here and try to find out more about the Greywers case. Amelia, Gourry and I will provide backup for Lina should she need it." 

"Gotcha."

~St. Jude City Police Department

Locker Rooms

Women's side~

Lina adjusted her Kevlar vest and zippered her jacket overtop of it. She fixed the extra clips on her belt and tightened her gloves, then finished lacing up her boots and hiding the sheath of her knife at her right ankle. She put her customized twin 9mm automatics "Fireball" and "Digger Volt" into her hip holsters, and hid her emergency grenade pistol "Dragon Slave". Lastly she twisted her lucky silver platinum ring around her middle left finger. The ring had appeared on her hand one night when she was fifteen. She hadn't taken it off since, though she couldn't for the life of her remember where she got it or why. She closed her eyes and wondered what brought about this swiftly moving turn of events. 

"Lina? Are you ready yet?" Gourry knocked on the door. 

"I'm ready." She heaved a sigh. 

"Okay, let's go." 

~Shabranigdo Inc Headquarters

First Floor

Reception Room~

Rezo Akahoshi was not an easily frightened man. He was tall and stern looking, with pale ivory skin and dark violet hair. That evening he was garbed in a deep wine-red silk shirt with a black tie and black slacks. He carried a walking cane with a silver wolf's head and two rubies for its eyes. Lina could easily imagine him in the flowing robes of a sorcerer or priest, using that wolf's-headed cane to cast spells. 

"You must be the agent from the special forces." He met her at the door, and his deep voice echoed in the otherwise empty room. His cane clicked as he walked towards her. 

"Yes, I'm Lina Inverse." She said, unsure whether or not to offer her hand in greeting. 

"Lina Inverse? I believe I recall hearing your name before…" Rezo looked thoughtful. "Ah yes! Weren't you in the papers a few times? You ended quite a few hostage situations in a… unique manner." Lina's face turned nearly as crimson as her eyes as she reflected upon her unorthodox method of getting criminals to surrender. So no one told her that you couldn't threaten the bad guys with a really big gun when she was a rookie. Big deal. It worked once. And the time after that. And after that. In total, the mere threat of "Dragon Slave" quickly ended seven hostage situations. After that, hostages were considered more of a liability than an advantage in St. Jude City. Hostages meant bringing down the wrath of Lina Inverse. 

"Yeah, a while ago." She laughed uncomfortably. "So, ah, Mr. Akahoshi, what can you tell me about the ghost incident?" 

"The ghost…" Rezo's face shifted to a grimace. "Please, follow me to my office. We can talk there." He led her across the large room towards the elevators, and quietly the redhead followed. The trip up the thirty-odd floors to the top and to the executive offices was made in silence. Neither Lina nor Akahoshi spoke on the way, which unnerved her to no end. 

~Shabranigdo Inc Headquarters

Top Floor- Executive Offices

Rezo Akahoshi- CEO~

Rezo's office was huge. It could easily be two stories tall, as Lina could see two floors worth of windows outside of the giant sheets of glass and steel that composed the back wall of the office. The CEO strode calmly to the desk in front of the windows and sat in a high backed chair. The desk dwarfed even the tall man, a feat she thought nearly impossible. 

"Please, have a seat." He motioned to a simple chair on the other side of the desk. "I'll tell you all I can." 

"Very well." Her footsteps echoed in the spacious room as she crossed the distance. "About what time did this episode occur?" 

"Eleven fifty-nine." He replied. "The clock began to chime, but it always starts a minute early." 

"Were you at this desk at the time?" 

"No, I was at the bookshelf." 

"Which one?"

"The one to the left of the clock." 

"How did the 'ghost' first get your attention?" 

"I turned around and he was sitting on top of the desk." 

"Did you recognize him?" 

"Yes. He was my grandson, Zelgadis. But Zelgadis died years ago…" 

"Did he say anything?" 

"Yes… he said…" The violet-haired man looked slightly uncomfortable before he proceeded. "I'll never forget his chilling words. He said, "The circle of seven will soon be complete. The time of vengeance will soon come. Those who were wronged will be avenged. Our common betrayer will be brought to face his sins. Prepare yourself." Those were his exact words." 

Lina froze, and chills ran up and down her spine. Those words, those haunting words, were familiar to her as well. She forced her mind back to the task at hand. 

"Mr. Akahoshi, do you have any enemies? Anyone who would benefit from your demise?" She asked. The pale man frowned as he thought about her question. 

"There are many out there who would benefit from my passing." He answered at last. "Though none I can think of who would be so anxious as to arrange for an assassination."

"Is your grandson's death common knowledge to the public?"

"No, I don't think so. I was very careful to arrange a quiet service when they finally declared him dead. He would have wanted it that way." Rezo folded his hands. "Miss Inverse, as amusing as this game of Twenty Questions is, I must ask you how you are prepared to handle this situation."

"Mr. Akahoshi, when the police department sends me in to handle a situation, they're sending a professional." Lina narrowed her ruby eyes and took "Dragon Slave" from its holster on her back. "On top of that, should the need arise, I have a backup team waiting just outside the building. We are perfectly capable—"

At that moment, the tall ebony grandfather clock began to chime. The wrought iron hands were pointing straight up, and Lina put her grenade launcher away and checked her watch. 

"When did it get so late?" She wondered. 

"It's started." Rezo whispered. 

"What?" The redhead stood up and hit the 'call' button to her team just as the electricity went out. The soft moonlight illuminated the area around the desk but nothing more. She cursed as she found that her signal was dead and hoped that the team was already on the move. She hated to think that she would have to break (and possibly pay for at a later time) the giant windows behind the rich man's desk to make a hasty exit and rappel to the level below. 

"He's here!" The violet-haired man cried. Lina drew and cocked "Fireball" and "Digger Bolt" under the flickering lights. She shoved Akahoshi into the chair she vacated a moment earlier. 

Suddenly there was a knock at the doors. Once, twice, thrice came a hollow echoing beat, like the hammering of nails into the lid of a coffin. The CEO was pale but calm, not showing the fear that Lina knew he must have been feeling. The great oaken panels swung open, but nothing could prepare her for what happened next.   

~St. Jude City Police Department

Basement Level 2

Records Room~

"Look at this." Sylphiel motioned for Valgaav and Filia to join her at a computer terminal. "This is the last case that the elder Mr. Greywers was working on before his death." The blonde woman's eyes widened as she read, and the teal-haired man looked ill.

"A possible drug leak from Shabranigdo Inc?" Filia gasped. "Isn't that what Zelgadis was working on when he went MIA?" 

"He must have been trying to finish his father's work." Valgaav stole control of the mouse and scanned further down the report. "Look, the case was left untouched after Mr. Greywers died, and the next person to pick it up was his son." 

"How did six people tied up in a drug scandal end up with government jobs when two of the officers working on their case end up dead?" The crime lab investigator shared a dark look with the profiler. 

~Shabranigdo Inc Headquarters

CEO Office

Zero Hour~

The creature that stood in the doorway was a bloody mockery of a human being. Its body was a glowing white-blue, skin and clothes alike. It seemed to be wearing an old-tattered police uniform, though with the multitude of bloody slashes running across its distinctively masculine chest, arms, and legs. A particularly nasty incision crossed his throat from earlobe to Adam's apple to earlobe in a morbid farce of a smile. 

"_Reeeeeeeeeeeezoooooo…_" The pseudo-mouth moved instead of the shade's actual bloodstained mouth. His one visible eye glowed a pale blue, piercing both Lina and Rezo's souls. "_It's time to complete the circle_." 

Lina allowed the ghostly figure to take a few steps towards the CEO as payback for his curt attitude towards her earlier before letting loose with both 9mms. The ghost had the good grace to hold still while the bullets passed harmlessly through his spectral flesh, allowing the redhead a moment to think she actually hurt him. 

"_Feel better_?" The shade turned and stared calmly at her as she fumbled reloading her clips. 

"Shit, what the hell are you?" She demanded as she felt "Fireball's" clip click into place. He vanished and reappeared barely two inches from her face. Here she could see his blood matted hair covering the right half of his face, his painfully familiar blue eyes sunken deep into his pale, preternatural flesh. 

"_I am the blood spilled in vain_." He hissed. "_I am the lives unfairly ended I am the voice of the dead and the hand of their retribution._"

Lina brought up "Fireball" to shoot, but the specter knocked it from her grasp. 

"_This does not concern you_." He stared meaningfully into her eyes for a moment, and she suddenly found the desire to run welling up in her heart. It took a good deal of willpower to fight that urge, but Lina had nothing if not determination. 

Meanwhile, Rezo crept towards the redhead's forgotten gun, moving only as fast as he dared without drawing attention to himself. His hand was only a few inches above the handle when the ghost turned his frigid glare on him. In a single lightning-fast movement, the shade darted forward and slammed the man into the wall. 

"_Hello, Rezo_." Azure eyes burned into his tainted soul. "_Remember me_?"  

"You're dead." Akahoshi stated coolly, ignoring the icy, dead hands that held him immobile. "I watched you die. You can't hurt me. You're dead." 

"_Say my name_." The wraith demanded, shaking his victim. "_Say it, damn you_!"

"I won't." Rezo sneered. "You're dead, you can't hurt me." 

"_Say my name, you bastard_!" The volume of the dead man's shout rattled the furniture and cracked the face of the grandfather clock. 

"…Zelgadis… Zelgadis Greywers…" The violet-haired man looked ashamed. "You were my grandson, Zelgadis Greywers, whom I had killed." 

"_Why_?" Zelgadis' voice nearly cracked. "_I trusted you_! _Damn it, I trusted you and you killed me_!" 

"It was business, dear boy." Rezo slowly brought up Lina's gun, which the ghost had not seen when he grabbed the CEO. "Like your father before you, you were bad for business then, and you're bad for business now." Lina's voice caught in her throat at the elder man's harsh words. 

The ghost screamed. The building shook, and the clock crashed to the floor. 

"_DAMN YOU_!" The specter howled, his slightly transparent face contorted with agony. "_I will see you burn in hell, you treacherous bastard_!" 

"Burn by yourself, worthless brat!" Rezo fired the gun, but the bullet passed through the ghost harmlessly. Lina felt a burning sting in her arm and realized that the projectile had hit her. She touched the wound and wasn't surprised to see blood. 

"_I am already dead, Rezo_." Zelgadis spat, oblivious to the bleeding redhead behind him. "_No mortal weapon can kill the dead. My body is long gone; it can no longer be destroyed. But you knew that already, didn't you_? _Yes, you knew because you destroyed it_! _Because you and your six cronies killed me_!" The wraith's pale hands suddenly grasped the hilt of a fiery katana. Shock gripped Lina's heart at the sight of the deadly weapon. Memories of her childhood, playing in the burnt out house, the fairy, the ring, the ghost, and the sword, flashed through her mind. 

"Zelgadis…" She whispered, crimson eyes wide. "My… fairy…" She reached out with her bloodied hand, barely blinking as the moonlight glinted off of the broken glass and the ring on her finger. 

Both ghost and man turned to see her; both surprised that she was still there. 

"_The little girl…_" The ghost whispered, eyes wide as he saw her ring. "_That ring_…_my ring_?" 

"A witness." Rezo growled. "And she, thankfully, is mortal."

Lina's ruby-red eyes widened considerably as he raised and aimed her own gun at her. Her mind screamed at her to move, but her body was sluggish with pain and sudden weariness. 

"Zelgadis…?" her voice, weakened in her condition, painfully reminded the dead man of the young girl who once believed in faeries. 

The gun fired.

The ghost vanished.

The girl stumbled.

~St. Jude City

No. 9 First Street

October 31, Twenty Years Ago ~

_Lina opened her eyes and blinked a few times to re-establish her surroundings. Looking at the room around her was like watching an old black and white television with a grainy screen and all. The room was bare, stripped of all furnishings except a few orange crates and scraps of wallpaper still clinging to the walls. Seven people stood against one wall, six of them armed with simple 9mm handguns. The Special Forces agent recognized them immediately as the victims from the case: Vrummagen, Strife, the Zangulas', Seigrim, and Gaav. Akahoshi stood directly in the doorway, his wolf headed cane held firmly before him and the victims-to-be positioned forming a pathway between him and a figure lying not ten feet away in the center of the floor. So heavily wounded was that man that he appeared hardly more visible than a dark blotch.  _

_"Why?" The bloody and beaten young man croaked, staring at Akahoshi with betrayal and sorrow in his eyes._

_"You shouldn't have interfered, boy." Akahoshi replied coldly and began to walk down between his cronies. His cane _tap-tap-tapped_ as he moved, creating a morbid rhythm with the slow _thump-thumps _of his stride. "Like your father before you, you stuck your nose in where it didn't belong. Like your father before you, you'll simply disappear." _

_"But… Grandfather…" Zelgadis, for that is who Lina instinctively knew the dying man was, reached out to the older man, begging for everything to be a terrible nightmare with only those two words._

_"Grandfather?" Gaav looked quizzically at his employer. "You never said you were related to the Greywers'." _

_"It was unimportant then, as it is unimportant now." Rezo waved off his thug's curiosity. "What **is** important is that this young man has decided to go poking around in our business, and given his employment to the St. Jude City Police Force, would most likely turn in our operations if allowed to leave this facility alive." The hiss of metal sliding against metal sounded as Rezo depressed one of the wolf head's ruby eyes and pulled the sword cane from its sheath. _

_"Grand—" the blade slit the young officer's throat with one swipe, "—father…" Blood poured forth from the fatal wound, spilling down his dark shirt and milling with the rest of his lost life fluid. The betrayal and weakness in Zelgadis' eyes burned away into anger and hatred. The glare he shot his killer as he fell promised retribution… even after death._

_The world dissolved in static-like snow._

~Shabranigdo Inc Headquarters

CEO Office

The Present ~

Lina was sure she was going to die. The burning pain in her chest had to be her punctured lungs attempting to fill with precious air. She was almost certain of her imminent demise when she realized that her chest hurt because she was holding her breath, and that she could see the bullet halted in midair mere inches from her face. As her eyes focused, she realized that the metal slug was caught in a transparent fist, frozen in spectral flesh. 

"Freeze!" The doors burst open as Xellos, Gourry, and Amelia finally arrived. "St. Jude City Special Task Force! Nobody move!"

The wrathful ghost hissed at this new interruption and shoved Lina towards her comrades. Xellos, who stared in amazement at the translucent figure wielding the katana, caught her. 

"_We are even now_." Zelgadis' ghost said coolly. "_Do not interfere_." The doors slammed shut on the law enforcers as if obeying the grand sweeping movement he made with his free hand as he spoke. 

"ZELGADIS!" Lina screamed, haunted by the painfully relieved light she saw in his cerulean eyes. She lunged forward and pounded on the great wooden panels, pausing only when the screams coming from the inside grew louder and then suddenly silenced. 

"We need to get inside." Xellos looked for other entrances or useful items. 

"Everyone get away from the door!" The redhead pulled "Dragon Slave" from her back and barely retreated two steps before firing. 

"Ms. Lina!" Amelia shouted and rubbed her nearly blinded eyes. "Be more careful with that thing! Someone will get hurt!" 

Lina was already through the remains of the door and halfway to being invisible in the smoke created by the aftermath. 

"Zelgadis? Mr. Akahoshi?" She froze in her tracks as she saw the mess.

Rezo was sprawled across his immense wooden desk. His throat was slit from ear to ear, and his eyes were torn from their sockets and decoratively inserted in the incision. Both of his shoulders were obviously dislocated, and the tendons in his elbows and forearms were slit. Multiple slash wounds were inflicted on his torso. There was a significant amount of damage to the tendons in his legs, and to top off the gory scene, Rezo's wolf-headed cane was used to impale the old man's heart. 

Around the desk a seven-pointed star inside a circle was drawn in blood, presumably Rezo's. The words "_The Circle is Complete. The Dead Can Now Rest._" were also written in blood around the symbol. 

Lina looked up, unable to bear the sight, and gasped. Two more words were written at the top of the window, "_Thank You_", from the outside. 

The End


End file.
